little bang —

Meteor explodes over Russia, injuring hundreds

As everyone was watching a large body called 2012 DA14, which is heading for a close approach to Earth today, a far smaller body exploded in a spectacular fireball over Russia's Ural region. Although it's not yet clear whether any pieces of the meteor survived to land on Earth, the large booms caused by its disintegration shattered glass, resulting in hundreds of injuries, though no reported deaths.

According to the BBC, both the Royal Astronomical Society and the European Space Agency have stated that the explosion and the meteor expected to pass within 18,000km of Earth on Friday are unrelated. The the Russian Academy of Sciences said the rock was about 10 tonnes and entered the atmosphere at about 54,000km/h (about 33,500mph) before breaking up in a spectacular explosion 30km above the Earth's surface. The New York Timesreports that a local Russian official is claiming that an impact crater has been identified, which would indicate that a significant piece of the rock remained intact to reach the surface.

Russia Today has collected a series of videos taken in the vicinity of the explosion. Two appear to show the explosion itself, and the remainder of the clips provide a sense of just how significant the explosion was for those on the ground.

Russia Today's video collection of the meteor's explosion.

UPDATE: Nature News is reporting that the Russian event was the largest in over a century. It quotes an astronomer who's used two infrasound (below the range of human hearing) receivers in the area as part of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty monitoring system to calculate the specifics of the event. Her calculations indicate that the object was 15m across and about 40 tonnes (far larger than the estimate above). The energy released by this object would be hundreds of kilotonnes—a figure that would make the North Koreans green with envy.

heard a news report this morning that Russioan Air defense intercepted and blew it up on the way in. I'm a little skeptical, but like to know if it really happened.

I highly doubt that (read as: No Way). First, it was too small to be picked up on radar. Nobody could see it coming. Second, it is estimated that it entered the atmosphere with a 33,000MPH head start. The whole event was over in a couple seconds

heard a news report this morning that Russioan Air defense intercepted and blew it up on the way in. I'm a little skeptical, but like to know if it really happened.

The only place I've seen that said that is Russia Today, and that site is such Russia-fellating trash that everything they say should be taken with a dump truck of salt until verified by other sources.

heard a news report this morning that Russioan Air defense intercepted and blew it up on the way in. I'm a little skeptical, but like to know if it really happened.

I highly doubt that (read as: No Way). First, it was too small to be picked up on radar. Nobody could see it coming. Second, it is estimated that it entered the atmosphere with a 33,000MPH head start. The whole event was over in a couple seconds

From the video, you can see just how quickly the whole event progressed.

Wow, boggles the mind at how this could have been nuclear Armageddon if it had happened at certain points in our past.

While it was relatively benign, with broken windows and some injuries. Could you imagine what would have happened if this took place during the Cuban missile crisis or other touchy points in our recent past?

Every once in a while something like this reminds me just how fragile our existence is. Wow, a bigger chunk of rock here, a different trajectory there, and this could have been the most disastrous event in recorded human history.

Unless the trajectories of the meteroids were on totally different planes, I fail to see how how these two events (the giant meteriod that passed close by Earth, and the one in this story) are not related. It would make sense that a larger celestial body would have smaller ones surrounding it. It is likely one of those that entered the atmosphere and became this story.

The problem with this assumption is that orbital trajectories really don't have to factor into whether the two events are related. The estimated velocity of the object set to flyby this afternoon is 17,500 MPH (according to an NBC report). The meteorite that entered the atmosphere was traveling at roughly 33,000 MPH. Orbital trajectories aside, the difference in velocity alone would rule that the two were not related.

Every once in a while something like this reminds me just how fragile our existence is. Wow, a bigger chunk of rock here, a different trajectory there, and this could have been the most disastrous event in recorded human history.

heard a news report this morning that Russioan Air defense intercepted and blew it up on the way in. I'm a little skeptical, but like to know if it really happened.

I highly doubt that (read as: No Way). First, it was too small to be picked up on radar. Nobody could see it coming. Second, it is estimated that it entered the atmosphere with a 33,000MPH head start. The whole event was over in a couple seconds

I don't even think there's a jet fired missile in existence that could catch something moving that fast. I think the fastest known SAM is around Mach 4.

This is obviously the opening salvo in an alien invasion. Get ready, they are coming!

Be glad the one that's a football length in size misses us.

We've known about the threat these larger meteors pose to life as we know it here for decades. I don't get why there hasn't been some sort of global cooperation on devising and build of some sort of early warning and response system to keep an extinction level rock from making it to our planet. You'd think ensuring our continued survival would trump all the petty crap we bicker over on a daily basis.